Want to know how to glow?

Some days when I go to yarn shop to meet the ladies in the knitting group, I pretend to wear blinders so that I don't notice new yarns and patterns that tempt and distract me from my current project. There are sooooo many pretty yarns to avoid! 

A month ago I did very well bypassing the yarn but noticed a basket of fibers for needlepointe by a Halloween display. The back wall in this photo is mostly needlepoint supplies.

I love Halloween so I had to look. There was a card of almost white fiber called Zoo Eyes by Rainbow Gallery. It is a polyester-viscose blend that glows in the dark. Boy howdy, I had to have some! It is recommended for needlepoint 13-18 count canvas or 7-11 count cross stitch. I bought waste canvas (cross stitchers will know what this is) with plans to make a ghost on a black sweatshirt for Colton.

Do you know what the hard part of this project was? Finding a plain black sweatshirt in size 3T. Every shirt I saw in the store had graphics or words already on it. I found a source online and ordered one.

Here is the waste canvas basted onto the shirt and with the cross stitch started. Sorry the photo is small. I must have sent it from my phone in an odd format. Enlarging it makes it blurry.

Still a work in progress, but here I've clipped some of the waste canvas threads around the "Boo!" and pulled them out to show you the process.

The fiber is much heavier than embroidery floss and created a somewhat textured surface, I think due to the viscose wrap that is probably what allows it glow in the dark.

And lastly, another less than stellar photo, but here it is glowing in the dark. I sat the shirt under a lamp while we had dinner, then turned off the light to attempt to photograph it. My camera wanted to use the flash which of course negated the special effect. I finally settled on this shot but the color is off. The ghost is more white than this with only a touch of greenish glow.

I hope Colton has a ghoulish or ghastly good time this Halloween. He is still pretty young, but his mommy and daddy, and of course this grandma, will feature the fun side of Halloween for him.

Here is the little charmer last year.